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NELSON D E W^ E: Y. 



BY SILAS U. PINNEY. 



Memorial Address delivered before the State Historical Society of 
Wisconsin, January 2, 1890. 



5WE2 



NELSON DEWEY. 



n 



NELSON" DEWEY. 

BY SILAS U. PINNEY. 

[Memorial address delivered before the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Jan. 2, 1890.] 

Since the last annual meeting of this Society, death has 
been busy in our midst and has reaped no inconsiderable 
harvest in the removal of the early pioneers and prominent 
citizens of Wisconsin; and we find but too frequent occa- 
sion to observe one of the leading purposes for which this 
Society was organized; namely, the preservation of fitting 
memorials of those eminent citizens who have faithfully 
served the State, and a record of whose lives and charac- 
ters are worthy to be preserved as a fitting testimony of 
gratitude for their services: that those who come after them 
may imitate their virtues, and profit by their example. We 
have, ii. this country, no Westminster Abbey, devoted to 
the greatness and glory of departed worthies, — no Pan- 
theon dedicated to the memory of our illustrious and hon- 
ored dead; no general place for collecting their monuments 
to perpetuate their achievements and renown. It is for us, 
in the absence of these, measurably to supply the place of 
these great mausoleums of the old world, by embalming in 
history, memorials of the lives, character and public ser- 
vices of our distinguished citizens. The history of our 
State, although its growth has been great, is as yet com- 
paratively brief, but replete with the deepest interest, 
promising still greater results in the future than those as 
yet realized. The grand drama of Western development 
that opened about fifty years ago, has unfolded gradually 
until from small and insignificant beginnings, the sparsely 
settled Territory and State has developed into what may 
well be termed a powerful empire, rich, populous, intelli- 
gent and prosperous, and the promise of to-day gives pres- 
age of still greater developments in the future. From the 
small beginnings of 1836, when Wisconsin had a population 
of about 12,000, we have now within our borders about 
1,750,000. The sparse and thinly-scattered settlements that 



NELSON DEWEY. 67 

then existed within our borders have expanded and coa- 
lesced and developed into a rich, prosperous and powerful 
State, and its progress in material wealth and general pros- 
perity has exceeded, and promises still to exceed, the most 
sanguine expectations. 

During the past year we have been called to mourn the 
loss of the first governor of the State of Wisconsin, — one 
long and prominently identified with public affairs, and all 
this unparalleled rapidity of growth and development, and 
who at the time of his death occupied beyond question the 
most interesting position and was the foremost figure 
among the public men of the State. 

Our pioneer governor. Nelson Dewey, departed this life 
on the 21st day of July last, at the age of seventy-six years, 
at his residence in Cassville, at the place where he settled 
on coming to the great West about fifty-three years before, 
at about the time of the organization of the Territory. He 
became at once prominent in public affairs, member at dif- 
ferent times of both branches of the legislature; and so 
strongly and so favorably had he impressed himself by his 
intelligence and ability, his fidelity and his integrit}^ in pub- 
lic trusts, upon the people, that he was chosen the first gov- 
ernor of Wisconsin upon its admission into the union, and 
upon him, in a large and important degree, was devolved 
the onerous duty of organizing the executive and adminis- 
trative departments of the government. With what skill 
and ability, with what rare judgment and discretion he dis- 
charged the delicate and responsible duties of his high 
office is well known to all familiar with early public affairs 
and was well attested by the skilful and harmonious oper- 
ation of the newly organized government. He was our 
strong, our tried and trusted chief. He bore aloft with firm 
and steady hand the standard of the State, and maintained, 
without tarnish or stain, its honor and dignity. Gov. 
Dewey belonged to the sterling and hardy band of Western 
pioneers, and in Wisconsin was one of the foremost and 
most distinguished among them. It was his privilege, to 
witness with them, during the last fifty years, the growth 
and development in Wisconsin similar to that in adjoining 



68 WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 

States, the like whereof in all human probability the annals- 
of civilization do not furnish a parallel. He was conspicu- 
ous and especially prominent in laying wide and deep the 
foundations of our civil institutions, and in organizing the 
State upon its change from Territorial to State existence, and 
was, so to speak, the master hand in shaping its early policy 
and starting it upon its subsequent prosperous career. 

Gov. Dewey was born in Lebanon, Connecticut, Decem- 
ber 19, 1813, and was the eldest son of Ebenezer Dewey 
and Lucy Webster, his wife. His remote paternal ances- 
tors came from Sandwich, near Dover, Kent county, Eng- 
land, in 1633. His father was a lawyer, and when his 
son Nelson was an infant of six months, they set out to • 
seek a new home where he might engage in the practice 
of his profession, in the then sparsely settled State of New 
York; and after the trials and perils incident to such an un- 
dertaking at that period, he settled at Cooperstown, New 
York, then a thinly settled locality with but few educational 
and social privileges. When he was about four and a half 
years of age his father took him back to Lebanon, Conn., 
where he lived with his grandparents until nearly eight 
years of age. In the meantime his parents had left Coop- 
erstown, and settled in the village of Louisville, Otsego 
county, New York, to which place he was brought by his 
parents when about eight years of age. Louisville was 
then a secluded village, scarcely noted upon the county 
maps or known beyond its borders. At this place he received 
such education as the common school afforded, and, like 
most young men of the period, when well advanced in the 
common branches of education he taught school one winter, 
and afterwards was sent to Hamilton Academy, at Hamil- 
ton, Madison county, New York, to complete his studies. 
This institution was connected with Hamilton University, 
an institution of learning founded at about the beginning 
of the present century, where young men prepared for the 
ministry, and which has sent out many noted scholars and 
divines. He attended the academy from the spring of 
1830 until the close of the school year in 1833, and among 
his fellow students were Hon. William Pitt Lynde, late of 



NELSON DEWEY. 69 

Milwaukee, Prof. John W. Sterling, late of the State Uni- 
versity, and Hon. Harlow S. Orton, one of the justices of 
the supreme court of Wisconsin, who with Gov. Dewey, in 
their day and generation have served the State of their 
adoption with distinction and ability, and attained to posi- 
tions of great honor and usefulness. Completing his edu- 
cation at the academy, he taught school one year in the 
town of Butternut (now Morris) in Otsego county, and de- 
voted considerable attention to reading law with his father, 
and at times with James W. Davis, and Nicholas Hanson, 
Esqrs., of Louisville, New York. He was a favorite of his 
family, and an affectionate, patient, diligent and indus- 
trious son, unostentatious and unassuming, mindful of the 
happiness of others rather than his own. This is the uni- 
form testimony borne in respect to his early years by those 
who then knew him; and these were his characteristics in 
his after years. 

In the fall of 1835 he continued his legal studies at Coop- 
erstown, in the office of Samuel Bowne, Esq., and early in 
May, 1836, he set out to seek fortune and fame in the un- 
settled Western Territories, intending to locate in that por- 
tion which was subsequently organized as Wisconsin 
Territory, but which was then within the limits of Michigan 
Territory. After traveling by various methods of convey- 
ance of primitive and uncertain character, with some con- 
siderable delay, he arrived at Dubuque and proceeded 
thence up the west side of the Mississippi river and crossed 
to Cassville, a city not yet built, where he took up his 
abode a few days before the Territorial government of Wis- 
consin was organized. Here he arrived on the 19th of June, 
1836, and here he commenced a distinguished career which 
made him eminent as one of the first and foremost citizens 
of Wisconsin, and which has allied his name and fame 
with the history of our State as its first governor. With 
the energy and enterprise which was characteristic of his 
life, he at once sought employment, and for about a year 
was engaged as clerk and bookkeeper for Daniels, Dennison 
& Company, the proprietors of Cassville. The great tide 
of western emigration which had set in in the direction of 



70 WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 

Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin and what is now Iowa, wa& 
soon after materially checked by the financial reverses that 
followed the wild and reckless speculations which character- 
ized the business affairs of the country in 1S3G and '37. He 
was to seek and work out his fortune and future station in 
life in the valley of the Mississippi, a vast country of al- 
most boundless possibilities and unlimited resources, a sec- 
tion of country destined to become the seat of empire of 
this great and growing country, and in which there is yet 
to be displayed, on the grandest scale, the most perfect civ- 
ilization the world ever saw. "The world was before him 
where to choose, and Providence his guide." With his 
early training, his habits of methodical industry and su- 
perior intellectual abilities, it was evident that an active 
life of usefulness and honor was before him. 

Although modest and retiring by nature, and unassum- 
ing and unpretentious in his manners, his merits as a young 
man were soon perceived, and upon the organization of 
Grant county, March 4, 1847, he was elected its first regis- 
ter of deeds, and the early volumes of conveyances in that 
county, in his neat, but bold and firm hand writing, bear 
testimony to the careful and accurate manner in which 
he performed the duties of the office. 

In the summer of 1837, he was appointed justice of the 
peace by Gov. Henry Dodge, a position which he held for a 
considerable length of time, and in November, 1837, he re- 
moved from Cassville to Lancaster, the latter place having 
become the permanent county seat of the county, and lived 
there until the spring of 1855 when he moved back to Cass- 
ville. Doubtless his appointment to the humble office of 
justice of the peace was the means of bringing him largely 
in contact with the settlers of that county, and tended in no 
small degree to commend him to public confidence and es- 
teem. He was then about twenty-five years of age, versed 
in the rudiments of the law, gifted with an intelligence 
which gave him an insight into the ordinary transactions 
of life, and a sound practical judgment which enabled him 
to act with prudence and discretion; there were then but 
few young men in the Territory who possessed his business 



NELSON DEWEY. 71 

qualifications and his ability to apply them and make them 
useful. His firm and vigorous conduct as a public officer 
in reference to a noted criminal case which arose in that 
vicinity, and in which he manifested a firm determination 
to see the laws of the Territory respected and obeyed, con- 
tributed to give him a reputation which soon led to his po- 
litical promotion and opened his way to a long life of honor 
and usefulness in the service of the Territory and State. 

In the fall of 1838 he was elected as a representative 
from Grant county to the second legislative assembly of 
Wisconsin Territory, and [ served in that capacity at the 
first session which convened at Madison November 26, 

1838, at the second session which convened January 21, 

1839, at the third session which convened December 2, 1839, 
and at the fourth extra session which convened August 3, 
1840; and at this last session he was elected and served as 
speaker of the house of representatives. At about this 
time he commenced the practice of law, going into partner- 
ship with J. Allen Barber, of Lancaster, afterwards widely 
known and distinguished not only as a lawyer, but as a 
man of eminent ability and position in public affairs. 
This firm transacted an extensive business among the 
early settlers and principally among the miners of the 
country, taking part in a great portion of the most import- 
ant litigation of the time. They engaged also in the busi- 
ness of dealing in lands to a considerable extent, and 
acquired large and valuable interests. This partnership 
continued until some time in 1848 or 1849. Both members of is 
were strong partisans and politically opposed. Mr. Barber 
was a whig, adhering to the doctrines of that party as 
then defined and taught by Henry Clay, and Mr. Dewey 
was a democrat of the Jeft'ersonian school, supporting the 
policies of Jackson and Van Buren. 

In 1840 he was elected a member of the third legislative 
assembly and attended the first session which 'convened 
December 7, 1840, and the second session which convened 
December 6, 1841, In 1842 he was elected member of the 
Territorial council of the fourth legislative assembly and 
served in that capacity at the sessions in 1842, '43, '44, '45 



72 WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 

and '46; and at the session of 1846 was elected and served 
as president of the council. He had in the meantime, held 
various county offices and taken such high rank in public 
service and in the performances of his legislative duties, 
and had exhibited such marked ability and integrity as to 
have drawn the attention of the people of the Territory to 
his great merits and capabilities. 

After the adoption of the State constitution and the ad- 
mission of the State into the union, in May, 1848, and about 
twelve years after landing at Cassville, a poor boy without 
influence and without money, he was elected the first gov- 
ernor of the then new State of Wisconsin. He had risen 
by sheer force of industry and merit from his humble posi- 
tion to the highest place in the confidence and respect of 
the people of a sovereign State. He was inaugurated Jan- 
nary 7, 1849, and was reelected in 1850, and continued to 
be governor of the State until January 5, 1852. 

The duties of the exalted station to which he had thus 
been called, in organizing the various State departments 
and in putting the machinery of the new State government 
into practical operation, were delicate and responsible; but 
the keen intelligence, the sound practical judgment and 
business capacity of Gov. Dewey enabled him to discharge 
the duties of the position to which he had thus been called 
in a very able and satisfactory manner. He gave himself 
to the discharge of his official duties in this new position 
of great resposibility, with the same spirit of devotion and 
integrity that had characterized him through all his previ- 
ous public career. The procurement of proper books, the 
preparation of forms and devising methods of administra- 
tion as incident to the organization of the various 
departments of the new government, were duties assumed 
and performed by him as the executive, and of which he 
took personal supervision. How wisely and well he per- 
formed these delicate and responsible duties was attested by 
the harmonious and successful operations of the new gov- 
ment in its different departments. 

The period during which he was governor has often been 
referred to by men of both parties as that of " the model 



NELSON DEWEY. 73 

administration." It was characterized by economy, integ- 
rity and a faithful and impartial administration of public 
affairs. It has been well said by one fitted to judge, " He 
left a clean record, and an example in his conduct and just 
management of the public interests that may have been 
well for the interests of the State had all his successors imi- 
tated it. He was a man of pure character and exalted 
sentiments, and no class or party could have dragged him 
knowingly into the commission of an unjust or unlawful 
act. He stood above and aloof from scandal, hypocrisy 
and low means and ways of the pot-house politicians and 
spoils seekers, and for these things the people of Wisconsin 
still love and cherish the memory of their first governor." 
The industry of Gov. Dewey in the discharge of the im- 
portant duties of his office was proverbial. His familiarity 
with the existing statutes of the Territory and State was 
remarkable, enabling him to fitly perform the duty of check- 
ing by executive veto crude and inconsistent legislation. 
Never excusing himself to visitors during the day, he often 
labored late into the night in preparing messages, official 
documents and in maturing executive business. He was 
dignified, affable and courteous to all and of such manifest 
integrity that even his warmest personal friends never 
ventured a suggestion by way of privately influencing his 
action upon any matter submitted to him for executive 
consideration. An earnest intention to carefully, honestly 
and impartially administer the government was always 
apparent in his deportment and conduct; and while he was 
a man of sound enlightened views and able to grasp, and 
deal with the most important questions, yet he gave to the 
details and minutias of his office the most scrupulous 
attention. 

After the expiration of the period of his service as gover- 
nor, he represented Grant county in the State senate at the 
sessions of 1854 and 1855. He was elected, January 29, 
1849, first president of the State Historical Society of Wis- 
consin, under its first or original organization, and he 
served for quite a number of years as one of the regents of 
the University of Wisconsin. In 1874 he was appointed 



74: WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 

one of the board of commissioners of the State prison at 
Waupun, for a period of six years, and was re-appointed 
in 1880, and held that office until the commission was abol- 
ished and the board of supervision of State institutions 
was established in 1881. 

From the time he arrived at man's estate until the day of 
his death he attached himself to and was prominent in the 
councils of the democratic party, and was a firm and de- 
voted advocate of its principles. He was a strong partisan, 
and a thoroughly patriotic citizen. No man in Wisconsin, 
during the time of his public career, commanded in any 
greater degree the confidence and respect of his fellow par- 
tisans. He was indeed an oracle of the party, and his 
fellow democrats upon all proper occasions delighted to do 
him honor. He served frequently as delegate to conven- 
tions, local, state and national, and frequently was a can- 
didate for presidential elector. The impress of his strong 
will and masterly intelligence was made manifest on all 
these occasions. His party fell into a minority in his local- 
ity, in the State and in the nation, about 1856, and his official 
career was then practically closed. After returning to 
Cassville in 1855 he made that place his home the remainder 
of his life, with the exception of short intervals during 
which he resided at Platteville and in Madison. 

During his first term as governor, he was married to Miss 
Kate Dunn, the daughter of Hon. Charles Dunn, the dis- 
tinguished chief justice of the Territorial supreme court, 
and she survives him, and of this marriage there were born 
two children, Kate D. Dewey, now the wife of Theodore L. 
Cole of St. Louis, Mo., and Nelson D. Dewey, residing in 
one of the new Territories. 

When Gov. Dewey returned to Cassville in 1855, he had 
been successful in business pursuits and had what was then 
regarded as ample fortune. Here in near proximity to the 
place where his youthful journeying in search of a location 
came to an end, he built him a home, a mansion of almost 
baronial pretensions, and entered upon an elaborate system 
of beautifying the surrounding grounds and of improve- 
ment of his farm. Stone wall fences were extensively built. 



NELSON DEWEY. 75 

roads constructed, arched stone bridges raised over ravines 
and gullies, and farm buildings were erected; all on an ex- 
tensive scale and constituting a grand and valuable estate. 

Here, as his long time personal friend has recently writ- 
ten, " In all the durability of structure, elegance of plan 
and embellishment of finish which modern architectural 
science could suggest, was erected his home, a marvel of 
beauty and attractiveness. Wide, open balconies looked 
out upon green lawns and waving meadow lands; while in 
the evening-tide from the lofty windows and observatory 
which crowned the mansion, the green slopes and undulat- 
ing ridges of the Iowa hills could be seen in the distance; 
and, nearer, flowing tranquil at their base, glowing in the 
golden rays of the setting sun, the still broad expanse of 
the Mississippi moving onward to the sea. From the clefts 
in the rock came trickling waters from the mossy fountains 
of nature and filled the fountains of art with the melody of 
their voices, casting off from their liquid surface a golden 
sheen, and a silvery light by night. Shrubs and many 
tinted flowers, fruits, ferns and trailing vines lent their 
charms and delicious fragrance to conceal the rough feat- 
ures of nature and enhance the beauty and attractiveness 
of the place." But an accidental fire did its work of des- 
truction, and all that had been so carefully planned and 
thoroughly built became a blackened ruin. 

He was devoted to the interests of Cassville and had its 
prosperity at heart from the time he settled there to the end 
of his life. He was its principal citizen, the life, energy 
and controlling spirit of the place. The building of a rail- 
road from Monroe to Cassville was one of the cherished 
schemes of his life. He planned for it, labored and spent 
much money for it, and considerable progress was made in 
preliminary work, but the financial crisis of 1873 blighted 
all hopes of its success. 

Unfortunately the latter portion of his life was clouded 
and embittered by misfortune and disappointments in 
which he had the sympathy of all who had known him, but 
all these untoward circumstances he endured quietly and 
without complaint. He struggled with misfortune as only 



76 WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 

one possessed with his courage and nobility of soul could 
do, preserving the same dignity of character and demeanor 
and the same affable and genial manner in his intercourse 
with his fellows that had characterized him in the more 
prosperous periods of his life. On the 21st day of July 
last, at his home in Cassville, surrounded by his friends and 
neighbors, he passed away full of years and of honors, uni- 
versally lamented and mourned by all who knew him. 
Well may we exclaim — 

•• Oh good gray head which all men knew. 
Oh iron nerve, to true occasion true, 
Oh fallen at length that tower of strength. 
Which stood four square to every wind that blew." 

Governor Nelson Dewey was no ordinary man. In any 
condition or calling in life, with his mental and moral char- 
acteristics, he would have achieved success and have be- 
come a leader among men: a positive force for the right in 
any community. 

He was a man of vigorous intellect, of marked individu- 
ality and traits of character, and a nature competent to ex- 
ercise and maintain a strong influence among men: 
modest, retiring and unpretentious, but gifted with a clear 
intelligence, sound judgment and firmness of purpose 
which needed no prompting to the performance of the full 
measure of official duty. With him, to know his duty was 
at once to perform it. No consideration could swerve him 
from it in the least. The sturdy simplicity and rugged in- 
tegrity of his nature commanded confidence and respect. 
Sprung from the common people, sympathizing with them 
and appreciating their wants and interests and ever willing 
to aid and assist to the full measure of his ability, the com- 
mon people understood and appreciated him. While he 
was a man of great firmness and strength of character, he 
was sympathetic, generous and charitable, giving with a 
free and willing hand to alleviate human misery and mis- 
fortune; and there are very many in that portion of the 
State where he made his home who owe their prosperity in 
life largely to his kindly assistance and advice. He was 



NELSON DEWEY. 77 

firm and abiding in his friendships, and a man of such pos- 
itive and decided character that he was always influential 
among his fellow citizens and the prominent men of the 
State. His clear intelligence, his unflinching integrity and 
his devotion to duty rendered the strict and vigorous per- 
formance of his official duty comparatively easy and earned 
for him deserved confidence and repect where others would 
have hesitated or failed. In all that he did and aspired to do 
in public life, the taint of scandal or suspicion of wrong- 
doing never reached his name. His administration of the 
duties of chief executive was not only honest and beyond 
reproach, but he was impartial in his great office. He was 
the governor not merely of his party, but of all the people 
of the State. He understood that his duties had to do as 
well with matters without, as within the executive cham- 
ber, and that the constitution he had sworn to support re- 
quired him "to take care that the laws be faithfully exe- 
cuted.'' He imparted to methods of administration that 
spirit of frugality, economy, integrity and republican sim- 
plicity that were characteristic of his early training, and 
while the influence of his many personal and civic virtues 
have made their appropriate impress and cannot be lost, it 
were more than a mere neglect that they should not be con- 
spicuously perpetuated for the salutory example they afford 
to all who may come after him in rule and authority. 

Like most of those who have influenced and controlled 
the affairs of States of the nation, under our popular system 
of government based on equality of political rights, 
Nelson Dewey was essentially a self-made man. He had 
not the beneflt of the adventitious aid derived from wealth 
or the influence of powerful relatives or friends. While 
he was doubtless better equipped by education than most 
men of his years who stood at that time in competition 
with him, the native vigor of his mind had not been over- 
laid or buried beneath the mere flowers and ornaments of 
learning, but without its ripe fruits. The example of his 
life is a most instructive one to young men entering upon 
the active duties of life, to encourage effort and stimulate am- 
bition and remind them of the possibilities of life, and to 



78 WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 

show to how great an extent success or failure lies within 
themselves, and within the compass of individual effort, if 
opportunity for effort is afforded. 

When he came to Wisconsin the weak voice of 
Western emigration was that of an infant demanding 
care and nurture, but it grew to the volume of 
a loud myriad-voiced multitude, like the swelling 
tide of a mighty sea coming in to occupy and fill the 
land. The country was then in its primeval freshness and 
beauty, fresh as if from the hand of the Maker, and he 
lived to see the forest opened to the sunlight and the dew, 
and the broad plains and sun-lit valleys filled Avith the 
wealth and progress of all the manifold triumphs of modern 
civilization; to behold the more perfect mastery of man 
over the resources of nature and the marvelous progress 
in the arts and sciences and in human culture and refine- 
ment, which has so greatly distinguished the last fifty 
years over preceding ages. The record of his life and 
public services is interwoven with the history and progress 
of the State. There is no need of massive monument of 
granite or polished shaft of marble to keep alive the mem- 
ory of his name, character and public services. His monu- 
ment, like that of his contemporaries, the early pioneers, 
is in the result of his labors. We have but to look around 
and behold what they have builded and developed so 
wisely and well; to look upon the material wealth and 
prosperity of a great populous, progressive State upon a 
happy, intelligent, law-abiding people. In the midst of 
such surroundings after a long, active and useful life, 
endeared to the people of the State by the memory of 
public services honorably rendered. Gov. Nelson Dewey, 
full of years and earthly honors, possessed of the confidence 
and respect of his fellow citizens and mourned throughout 
the State, has gone to his peaceful and honored rest. 



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